Evidence shows China's reeducation of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority is now deploying them to work in factories, including a sweat shop making Nike shoes, according to The Washington Post.

"We can walk around, but we can't go back [to Xinjiang] on our own," a Uighur woman told the Post.

The Uighur workers are afraid to interact in the Qingdao community, where a Nike supplier Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co. operates, according to the report.

"Everyone knows they didn't come here of their own free will," a fruit-seller told the Post. "They were brought here."

China, facing opposition to its operation to forcibly assimilate Uighur minorities in education camps, has announced most have "graduated" and been released under the "Xinjiang Aid" program, which helps against putting them in poverty, but also works to control the Uighur population, the Post reported.

"The Uighurs had to come because they didn't have an option," another Qingdao vendor told the Post. "The government sent them here."

The Taekwang factory is not the only one forcing Uighurs into "conditions that strongly suggest forced labor," according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, per the report.

"The Chinese government is now exporting the punitive culture and ethos of Xinjiang's 'reeducation camps' to factories across China," Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Vicky Xiuzhong Xu told the Post.

"For the Chinese state, the goal is to 'sinicize' the Uighurs; for local governments, private brokers and factories, they get a sum of money per head in these labor transfers."

For its connections to the factory, Nike told the Post: "we respect human rights in our extended value chain, and always strive to conduct business ethically and responsibly."

"We are committed to upholding international labor standards globally," Nike spokeswoman Sandra Carreon-John told the paper, adding, its suppliers are "strictly prohibited from using any type of prison, forced, bonded, or indentured labor."

There are 7,100 workers at the Taekwang plant, of which about 600 are Uighurs.

"The purpose of bringing in migrant Xinjiang workers [in addition to other migrant Han Chinese workers] is to offset the local labor shortage, due to increasing number of competing industries for workers in our area," Taekwang parent company CEO Kim Jae-min said in a statement to the Post.